Wednesday, October 15, 2008

Beaded Button Workshop

On Monday evening, I did a beaded button workshop for our local sewing guild. There were 14 participants, a good sized group.
These are some of the works in progress.
Each person got a kit with fabric backed by lightweight, stable-in-all-directions interfacing, a button form, a beading needle, beading thread and a collection of at least ten different kinds of beads. Most of the beads were 11/0, with a few 8/0, 6/0, and other shapes.
I've found that, for me at least, it's easier to teach this when the fabric is backed by interfacing. Maybe that's because sewers are very familiar with interfacing.

Here are some of the finished buttons.

We only had abut 90 minutes to work, but most people got nearly finished or completely finished. They did a nice job, didn't they?
Our guest brought several little beaded bags to show us. They are just gorgeous. They are knitted, with more than 1500 11/0 seed beads on each one. The knitting needles are about the diameter of toothpicks. The bags are about two inches high.
Amazing, aren't they?

1 comment:

Marty S said...

@carynjoy, I didn't make the knitted bags. A guest at our workshop did and brought them to show. My mind boggles at the thought of toothpick sized needles. I haven't knitted anything beyond a scarf or a hat since the 70s. :-)
Marty S